


Everything's fine, nothing's on fire

by Anonymous



Category: Naruto
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Dark Crack, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 05:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15812805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Hatake Kakashi has become stuck in time.





	Everything's fine, nothing's on fire

“You’re not going to hear it from this little shit,” he points his thumb dismissively at his scowling teenage self, “so I’m going to say it for both of us: I love you, Gai.”  
  
Kakashi gives them exactly three seconds to go through their respective freak-outs after that – the brat’s completely silent and only visible in the widening of his single eye and the tightening of his jawline, while next to him Gai turns into a stammering fountain of tears and snot – then he adds, just as calmly and quite thankful for the fact that in his emotionally overwhelmed confusion Gai can’t decide which of them to try to hug first, “And in case you’re wondering: yes, we fucked.”  
  
***  
  
There are certain things you don’t realize about yourself until you’ve watched everyone you’ve ever loved die. This, Kakashi has learned some time ago, but now he finds that there are also things you don’t know until you’ve been catapulted through space and time by a forbidden jutsu and have had to fight side by side with your insufferable seventeen-year-old self to save the future.  
  
Like for example that he, Hatake Kakashi, can actually tell someone how much they mean to him, provided he has a way to turn the whole thing into some kind of weird joke. The more shocking, the better.  
  
***  
  
At least Kakashi hopes they saved the future. There’s no way for him to know really, until he dispels the jutsu which might send him back…or kill him… or destroy the world… or just make him look really, really stupid in front of a couple of teenagers.  
  
***  
  
He was too late to do anything for his dad and Minato-sensei and Kushina-san and Rin, but he did everything he could to make things better, once he’d convinced everyone that he was the real deal: an older - hopefully wiser - version of Hatake Kakashi who could warn them about Orochimaru and Danzo and Uchiha Madara and all the rest.  
  
***  
  
With Obito down in the cells waiting for his trial, with Itachi redeemed and returned to the village and Naruto and Sasuke settled in loving foster families and Sandaime facing up to the mistakes he made and Tsunade-sama and Jiraiya-sama both back in Konoha, Kakashi thinks it might be time for him to go see what he has wrought.  
  
So why is he still here?  
  
***  
  
_I love you, Gai._  
_We fucked._  
  
Both true, and yet not even beginning to scratch the surface.  
  
***  
  
“It was complicated,” Kakashi tells eighteen-year-old Gai a couple hours later when Gai inevitably comes by the miserable little apartment Kakashi used to rent as a teen.  
  
The brat is down at the cells, stalking Obito no doubt. Needing answers.  
There are no answers to some questions; he’ll learn that when he’s older.  
  
Kakashi already knows that, like he knows he should cut the kid some slack, but he can’t help resenting him, just for being _him_. And he also knows little Kakashi resents him just as much, for the same reason.  
  
Gai on the other hand…  
It hurts to look at him. He’s too bright, too vibrant, too alive.  
To be fair, Kakashi is a little tipsy.  
To be fair, for the past couple of months, ever since it’s happened, he’s watched an older version of this boy go to his death over and over in his dreams.  
  
“Kakashi-san!” This is what Gai has been calling him to distinguish him from his pimply past self. He’s doing it now, his eyes inexplicably brimming with tears, hands balled into fists at his sides. “I hope I will be--- _was_ … uh… will be? a… a—”  
  
He sounds more like Lee than the man he will become, Kakashi thinks. Anyway, it’s not like Gai to come without an overly long speech already prepared.  
  
With his face tomato-red, his lip quivering, his ears this close to steaming, Gai looks so sweet and vulnerable, though, that Kakashi can’t help himself.  
  
He deliberately holds Gai’s gaze as he pulls his mask down.  
  
There is a voice in his head, a very dry voice that points out, _This is wrong._ and then goes silent because Kakashi’s conscience has long since given up on fighting losing battles.  
He closes the distance between them in three long strides.  
  
Gai’s gaze is glued to his lips. He goes completely cross-eyed when Kakashi pins him to the wall and kisses him.  
  
At eighteen, Gai has had his big growth spurt already, but he’s still half an inch shorter than thirty-something Kakashi. It’s clearly Gai’s first kiss and the thought that this time, Kakashi has stolen it, sends a thrill through his body.  
  
It’s also not enough.  
  
“It was only once,” Kakashi whispers against Gai’s flushed cheek. Already, he’s thinking about the smooth skin under that green suit, about how he’ll kiss all the places yet to be scarred. Though this time around, they might remain unmarred.  
  
He presses against Gai, feeling the hardness between the teenager’s legs, Gai’s hands clutching at his shoulders. Kakashi can’t remember the last time he wanted someone so much, so much that he knows he won’t be able to stop, except that that’s a lie; he remembers the last time. Like he could ever forget.  
  
And there is a sick part of him that hopes his younger self will come home in time to see this, to see him with Gai, taking something he knows he doesn’t deserve.  
  
Neither of them.


End file.
